Abstract
ABSTRACTOne challenge facing psychological studies of affect and emotion is how we can capture the situated, located assemblage of practice involved in affective experiences: the where, how, when, who, and what of affective meaning making. Here we argue for a place for map making in the methodological toolbox of qualitative psychology. Participatory mapping is a well-established technique used in geography, planning, and community development, with a growing tradition in psychology and sociology. The examples drawn upon here are from two studies, exploring experiences of space in mental health service use and in an intentional community for people with learning disabilities. Mapping is argued to be useful both as a process and product within the construction of sense making in qualitative research. Particular strengths are argued to be locating specific affective experiences, exploring layers of ambiguous or contradictory experiences, and making materiality visible in participants’ narratives. The potential of mapping as a tool for qualitative research in affect and emotion is discussed.
Highlights
One challenge facing psychological studies of affect and emotion is how we can capture the situated, located assemblage of practice involved in affective experiences: the where, how, when, who, and what of affective meaning making
Wetherell (2015: 149) has, argued some contemporary forms of affect theory can act to erase the person as an agentic, located actor, as people become instead: “schools of fish or flocks of starlings, incomprehensibly wheeling, pulsing, moving, reacting, as body speaks direct to body”. She argues that some affect theorists, those located in cultural studies and human geography, have tended to view affect as wholly distinct from discourse, representation or meaning making
Power and meaning are always bound up with affective experiences
Summary
In her work on family relationships, Gabb (2009) created floor plans of participants’ homes and asked them to locate different family emotional encounters they had over the period of a week using different coloured stickers This technique has the advantage of locating the emotional encounters described, in both relational and spatial terms. Rather than being a version of a diary method, where participants note and reflect on their experiences away from the interview, this was instead a tool to generate narratives of specific and located experiences within the interview itself Following this exercise, further questions were asked in the interview focussing on different types of boundary: spatial, temporal, professional, and organisational. The other two participants lived in independent housing but had previously shared and worked in a home alongside adults with learning disabilities in a different country but with the same organisation and community ethos.
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